Changing retirement age would create £182bn windfall says influential centre-right think tank
Despite average life expectancy rising from around 50 to 80 over the past century, the pension age has remained relatively unchanged – although the government has been gradually raising it since April 2010.

Half of UK adults will be over 50 by the mid-2030s, which coupled with rising life expectancy means taxpayers face escalating costs unless people stay in work for longer, according to what the Daily Mirror describes as “Boris Johnson’s favourite think tank”.

The pension age is already set to increase to 67 by 2028 and to 68 by 2046 – but the research group (co-founded by former Conservative leader and work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan-Smith, who was behind the idea of Universal Credit) wants to see a faster increase.

The pensions bill has ballooned from £17bn in 1989 to £92bn now, making up £4 of every £10 of welfare spending. By 2023 it will cost £20bn more as the population ages and the birth rate falls.

To limit the cost to the state of this “major demographic shift”, the report calls for the state pension age to be accelerated to 70 by 2028 and then 75 by 2035.

Getting more people aged 55 to 64 into work would slash the costs of out-of-work benefits but also help boost GDP by around 9%, equating to £182bn, it claimed.

To achieve this goal, the think tank recommends helping older people “access the benefits of work” by giving support to them and employers, such as increased access to flexible working and training opportunities.

The Daily Express says “biased employment practices are blamed for preventing more than a million older people getting a job, with more than half of all adults out of work in the year before they reach state pension age”.

CSJ chief executive Andy Cook said: “Right now, we are not doing enough to help older people stay in work and the state pension age doesn’t even closely reflect healthy working life expectancy.

“By increasing the state pension age, we can help people stay in gainful and life-enhancing employment while also making a sound long-term financial decision.”

However, the Mirror reports that “welfare campaigners are appalled by the report and point out that with workplace pensions often unaffordable, three-quarters of Britain’s elderly will rely entirely on their state payments by 2036”.

Caroline Abrahams, Age UK director, said more support was needed for older workers but the state pension age should not be raised.

She said there were hundreds of thousands of people in their 50s and 60s in “dire financial straits” as they couldn’t work but still had years to go before getting their state pension. Raising the threshold would simply pull many more older people into that situation.

Former Tory pensions minister Ros Altmann said the proposed changes “must not be allowed to happen”, tweeting: “Reports of state pension age rising to 75 are shocking. Major changes in pension attitudes required due to big life expectancy differentials. Using age as a strict cut off is not good policy.”

Jan Shortt of the National Pensioners Convention added: “The longer you work the more ill you become and the less likely you are to even reach retirement age.”

The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.

Think tanks should be banned. Members of such tanks are usually very well off, as such their thinking is somewhat devoid of reality.

Think tank Joe has no fear of the tanks thinking as it will never impact upon them.

I worked hard for my Pension ( former coal face worker ) and the government rob the mine workers pension scheme no end of times. It even took a 10 year break from matching contributions we made. Yet the MWP scheme is still very rich. However the amount paid out to it’s members is pitiful. Instead of the Government raiding the surplus, It should have gone to increase the pension pay out to it’s members.

I seen this coming and got my Pension out as soon as I was made redundant. Through good sound advice I did very well investing my MWP. After qualifying as a social worker, and then working for the local authority. I transferred my pension into the Local Gov Pension Authority scheme which was a Super Attenuation final salary scheme. I was later retired under ill heath grounds with my full pension and lump sum.

Sadly, so many are not so lucky and will never see the state pension the way things are going. If it is increased to 75, you would have to ask what’s the point as so many will never see it.

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Well Brydo, I don’t believe that the pension age should be raised to 75, not yet, especially for those who are coming up to pension age- that would be criminally unfair?

It is a clear fact however , that humans are living longer, so there is an apparent opportunity to lengthen the working life, and put off paying a pension, but this should only be applied , if ever, to younger people, who are likely to live and work to to a greater age than we will anyway?

£182 billion is quite a saving and very tempting, but like the £10 billion a year, stolen from Pension Funds by Gordon Brown, the worst Chancellor ever who will never be forgiven for ruining not only final salary pension schemes and the lives & aspirations of thousands of pensioners, but also as an unelected PM, just like BoJo, was in charge of the Economy during the financial crash, and he had absolutely no idea how to react to the crisis, other than , typically, throw our money at it – throwing it all away comes to mind, and this is what will happen to the £182 billion, ‘cause Politicians cannot be trusted with our money, irrespective of political party!

Its amazing how they can’t come up with something like raising the inheritance tax to a realistic amount or even getting rid of it, because imho its just theft from families who have already paid more than enough tax on that same money,instead they want to keep people from getting there well earned state pensions.

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.

Changing any “deal” part way through the duration of the agreement is never good and just breeds distrust. I will be entitled to my pension at age 67 which was not part of the “deal”. A couple of years addition is bad enough but adding 20 years is not acceptable.

Adding years every so often is likely to be unpopular but more palatable in the long run.

As people live longer it only makes sense to work longer but it should not be forced it is much better to use the “carrot” rather than “stick”

The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.

I thought that was the idea of the age discrimination act, that if people were fit and wanted to work longer and could still do the job, then they could, but to tell people who have effectively entered into a contract, that we are now going to constantly change the rules is unnaceptable and if that is the view of the people, then they should express their view at the ballot box.

Although we are indeed on average living longer with very wide regional variations, we have most certainly not discovered Eternal Youth, peole are living longer due to medication and advance in health care, however as we on this site, know only too well, there is a very big difference from being alive and being alive, healthy and fit to work.

Also while we cannot provide work for all the fit younger peole, we should not be giving them even less chance of a job due to the increase of the retirement age.

I do not see too many pensioners wrecking bus shelters due to them being bored and having nothing to do. Let the young use their energy for work and let the people who have paid their dues to society, have a few well earned, relaxed and healthy years before they die.

Although I must admit, it is wonderfull timming from Smithy and his Tory pals, to come up with this one. I am sure it will be put to good use at the election campaign by the alternative parties.

No! Especially not for manual workers. I know these days we have very little heavy industry left

* Cough Cough ThanksEU Cough Cough * but can you imagine still being expected to do heavy lifting and long hard hours with it, till the age of 75?

It maybe wouldn’t be so bad for office dwellers but no, it certainly wouldn’t be fair to expect someone to do heavy work until they’re 75.

If older people want to carry on and do a little job after the age of 65, that’s fair enough but no, forcing people to work until the age of 75 is just unfair, especially when they’ll have paid into the system for near enough 50 years by then.

Besides which, we have young families where both parents are having to work, sometimes a couple of low paid, part time jobs to make ends meet as it is, extending the retirement age till 75 would make that situation worse, imo.

That said however, i worry greatly that having successive governments prepared to see our industries die and the skills with them, that we will, very soon have no time served skilled craftsmen left. i would like to see those we have left, offered decent money to pass those skills on to as many kids/young adults as possible, while they still can, so that we will still have the ability to return to those skills should the need arise.

I certainly don’t think we should have politicians picking up a fortune in salaries until they drop out of the tree either and they certainly shouldn’t be getting such huge pensions at our expense and no doubt, many of them, being over 65 will also be picking up the ordinary state pension on top because none of them seem to think they take enough money off us :/ personally, i wouldn’t give tuppence ha’penny for any of them, let alone their platinum pensions.

Having been looking up the stats for Brexit, I came across these stats of the ages of MP’s in Parliament, the very same people who vote to increase the working age/retirement age in the real world, because they have a cushy number which allows them to work longer.

60-69 70+

1979 87 14

1983 86 9

1987 79 6

1992 95 3

1997 69 8

2001 83 10

2005 100 14

2010 99 16

2015 107 24

2017 114 28

Yes like them at work, I can get through Christmas Day, eating and drinking too much then falling asleep and don’t get me started on the House Of Lords (pensioners club).

People who have had to do real work may be living longer with medical help but they have certainly not found eternal youth and many of us have paid the price.

Maybe we should do what we did with cigarettes and put health warnings on job adverts that work can damage you’re health and cause possible ultimate death.

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